Posts

The production effort which has brought unprecedented coverage on the GrandSlam Moscow and the 2017 Russian Open Championships (ROC) to massive online audiences (so far) was coordinated by RED SQUARE - a media group producing programmes like "The Voice," "Russia's Got Talent" and several other music and entertainment shows. It was supervised by RED SQUARE President Ilya Krivitsky himself, who had travelled to the GrandSlam Stuttgart with the President of the All Russian Federation of DanceSport and Rock 'n' Roll (RFDSARR), Mrs Nadezhda Erastova, to scout the production done from there and to look for ways of improving on it.

A strategic alliance entered into by RED SQUARE and the RFDSARR aims to generate high media visibility for DanceSport in Russia (and in this case abroad), with the first concepts of dedicated programmes currently under development. "The Dancing Planet" - an RFDSARR inititaive promoted by RED SQUARE - was a pilot project staged in Sochi earlier this October.

The live broadcasts from the Crocus Expo reached a cumulative audience of more than 70,000 over the two days. These broadcasts are no longer available as both Match TV and the WDSF broadcasters will air the highlight programmes. WDSF will make the 90-minute GrandSlams programmes available through Vimeo on Demand starting Friday 3 November.

Let's wrap today's coverage up on a high note and with another short story produced by "Mestre" Pedro Toro.

Now it's one about a focused and highly dedicated Standard couple that has been making finals in GrandSlams and Championships for the past three years: Vaidotas Lacitis and Veronika Golodneva. They are a team. Each member has his or her task assigned and takes charge of it during a long day of dancing. But Vaidotas and Veronika should tell you their story themselves.

Some days are better than others and Saturday, 28 October, was particularly good. We were able to stream more than seven hours on the 2017 GrandSlam Latin Moscow, the 2017 World Youth Ten Dance and a few other competitions without a glitch, with a very stable signal coming out of the Crocus Expo and drawing what must have been a record audience for WDSF. Close to 50,000 viewers have watched the two broadcasts so far.

Sunday, 29 October, was not at all what we expected it to be. Streaming the event through YouTube turned into a nerve-wrecking experience because of a server overload on their end. We streamed close to four hours, but the signal coming off the decoder was cut close to 100 times. What did get through to the worldwide audience, outstanding footage of the world's best Standard dancers in action, was generally appreciated, even if it was cut frequently. The winners of this GrandSlam leg, Dmitry Zharkov and Olga Kulikova, RUS, had another stellar night with a score of 196, but the runners-up, Evaldas Sodeika - Ieva Zukauskaite, LTU, had probably their best total ever: 193 points.

For the 2017 GrandSlam Standard Moscow, too, the host broadcaster of the Russian Open Championships - the country's #1 sports channel Match TV - will produce the decisive stages, i.e. semi-final and final. They also cover a number of WDSF Opens (PD, JUN I and JUN II). The webcast is scheduled to start at 18:00 Moscow time (UTC +3 h) and should end at around 21:30. A short opening ceremony will lead into the semi-finals of a PD Open LAT, JUN I and JUN II Opens and - just prior to 19:00 - the semi-final of the GrandSlam Standard.

For yesterday's broadcasts we are happy to report on huge viewing audiences: more than 35,000 were watching for an average period of 25 minutes. Let's see how today's will be received. The signal quality will again be stunning - probably unlike anything else you have seen in the past. Russia is setting new standards for production!

Here is one of the stories that we promised you in an earlier post. This one is produced by the "Mestre" himself, our award-winning director Pedro Toro.

There are lots of people and plenty of good stories to be found at the 2017 Russian Open Championships and at the 2017 GrandSlam Moscow, but we cannot tell you more than two or three. Too many other things need to be done ...

Andrey Gusev and Vera Bondareva first ran into each other years ago in Moscow, while dancing with different partners. She had to "look up" his number to find out who he was. But we better let Andrey and Vera tell you the rest of the story themselves!

B-Boy Bumblebee, B-Girl Matina - the winners of the BREAKING for GOLD Qualifier | Africa and Europe - and other members of their squad dazzled the crowd at the 2017 Russian Open Championships and GrandSlam Moscow with their showcase.

In his address during the opening ceremony, WDSF President Lukas Hinder has made mention of their exploits: "As recently as last Sunday, the new federation under President Nadezhda Erastova won two out of two gold medals at the YOG Qualifier in Germany: a maximum contingent of three b-boys and two b-girls keeps Russia on track for an Olympic title in breaking!"

It was one of those finals which will likely come up in conversations years from now. The primary reason for that was definitely the quality of the dancing, not just by the finalists, the other couples in the top 12 were burning the floor as well. Then we would probably have to mention the incredible atmosphere at the Crocus Expo: packed to the last seat and with all standing room taken up, decorated in a way that broke with norms of the usual fit-out and, last but not least, the live orchestra.

Third, the host broadcaster Match TV produced a nearly continuous seven-hour live signal of all competitions: aside from the GrandSlam, it was coverage on the decisive stages of the 2017 World Youth Ten Dance and an opening ceremony which featured, among others, the breakers who had excelled in the Continental Qualifier in Essen a week earlier. Here they dazzled the crowd with a showcase!

What a day at the Crocus Expo with the Russian Open Championships offering the audiences here and around the world a great variety of events and dance styles. It started at 10 a.m. and it ended justed now (close to midnight) with the final of the 2017 World Youth Ten Dance awards ceremony.

We offered you a live stream of nearly eight hours in a quality which doesn't have any precedent in our sport. The final of the 2017 GrandSlam Latin Moscow had 16 different cameras capturing the action on, above and around the floor.

More will come your way tomorrow with a webcast of the 2017 GrandSlam Standard Moscow and several other WDSF Opens. Come back!